


Proof of Life

by jesseofthenorth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesseofthenorth/pseuds/jesseofthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton is not a man who would describe himself as 'isolated', he just knows he is the only one he can really count on. He's not 'lonely', he just spends a lot of time alone. Comes with being a sniper. His life is good he doesn't mind being on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proof of Life

**Author's Note:**

> Bata read by the lovely Saone and my long suffering pal Rick. They both can write but Rick is kind of a dick about grammar. Any and all mistakes remain mine.
> 
> Great thanks to my artist sumer_starlight for the wonderful artwork. Please leave her some love for all her thoughtful work
> 
> http://sumer-starlight.livejournal.com/5835.html

[ ](http://imgur.com/enfYyCq)

_Clint wasn't a standoffish or unfriendly child, when he was small. He wasn't quiet or self contained the way he was later, when he was older and most of life had rubbed most of the shine off of him. He was open and wild and friendly. He had a quick mind and and even quicker mouth but he also an innate charm that made him easy to like. It wasn't until later that he learned to be quiet and careful and appreciate his own company._

_It was over time that he learned. Through his father's rages and his mother's inability to protect anyone, including herself. Through the benign neglect of an overloaded child welfare system. Which lead him to his brother's jealousy, and finally the betrayal of every adult who had power over his life in the circus. Clint's life taught him that the best way to stay safe was to his keep distance. If you are not close enough to engage people you are not close enough to get hit. He learned to run fast because if you don't get get caught you don't get a whipping._

_Of all the things life in general taught him, these were the lessons it took him the longest to unlearn._

****

Sometimes Clint still ran, when there was no Op, and he had fired all the arrows he could into little circles of paper; sometimes he pulled on his beat up Chuck's and what ever sweats were handy and ran. Now it was just to feel his feet hit the ground and feel his muscles burn off all the energy that had nowhere else to go.

Early in the morning before there was anyone else on the streets except the homeless or maybe the occasional garbageman. He ran through the dirty alleys of New York, or along the Hudson when he could get close to the water. He used the quiet and isolation of running to clear away turmoil and doubt and ugly pieces of his past. He hoped the clearing away would make room for better, cleaner parts of himself. Sometimes he thought it worked, sometimes _nothing_ could do that, so he ran until he was too tired to think.

He ran until his lungs burned and his legs were shaking. Then he went back to his apartment, showered, ate coco puffs or corn pops out of the box, washing it down with black coffee.  
He didn't like the quiet in his apartment a lot of the time. Clint would turn on the TV on to fill it up. It never occurred to him that there was something missing, it was just his life.

****

_The work Clint did, his life depended on quiet, stealth, being invisible. It was his second greatest skill, the ability to remain unseen. He practiced being invisible, mostly he waited and watched and didn't move. He's been doing it since he was small. Clint Barton was a big believer in playing to his strengths._

_When a job was over he would file the minimum amount of paperwork to keep him from getting yelled at. He would do it tucked away someplace where no one could see how long it took him to fill the forms with his careful block letter printing._

_He slept and ate and waited for the next assignment. These were the sum of his days and the way they passed varied only in minor detail. He did his job and tried not to end up dead. If anyone had bothered to ask him if he felt lonely or disconnected he might not have known what they really meant. He was a sniper, he worked alone. He didn't think about it much._

****

Clint didn't know what he hated more: the wind, the cold, or the heat. Today he hated the fucking desert. Especially _this_ desert. He had spent the entire day, literally, from the crack of dawn to the high point of the sun on until the sun headed toward the horizon, laying along the edge of a dry river bank with his sights trained on a rusting Quonset hut. Waiting, slowly baking in the sun, trying not let the boredom kill him. His only cover was a twisted old juniper that stopped providing any shade hours before. The sun moved high and away leaving the tree as a disguise, instead of the shade he really wanted. Grit and sand pushed it's way into every gap in his clothing, creeping in, mixing with sweat and scouring his skin 'til it felt paper thin.  
He wasn't conscious of the passage of time, but Clint could feel the skin on his face getting tight and sore, any sunscreen had long ago sweated off.

Flies clustered around the corners of his eyes and mouth and nose, dipping at the moisture there. Even if he had been hidden well enough to risk brushing them away it would only have brought a moment or two of relief before they were back. The membranes in the corners of his eyes would be red and irritated for days but there was nothing to do about it except wait. The flies weren't leaving and neither was he.

When the days got this long Clint removed himself from his discomfort by designing things in his head, arrowheads mostly but sometimes quivers and other equipment. Weird pastime maybe but he had designed some ass kicking arrows over the course of an op and the trip inside his head kept him sane over the long, still hours, without taking him so far away he couldn't do his job.

The mental distance couldn't change the fact that he was hot and irritated, he had to piss and the flies were a misery. He would wait on that as long as he could, he hated pissing in a bottle almost as much as he hated taking a shot with his dick hanging out.

Half an hour after the sun dipped below the horizon, just before dark, Barton got word to pull back to base. The four words it took to convey the message were the only verbal communication he'd had with another human being in twenty-four hours.

He had no idea what went on, or why they pulled back, and he would probably never find out. It wasn't his job to know that shit. It was his job to sit out in the sun until his skin blistered and pull the trigger when he was told to. Some days he hated his job. Maybe even most days. He took what comfort there was to be had from being on the right side of the law.

 

The skin on his face was still red and painful and peeling when he was sent to South America and found out a sunburn can be truly miserable, given the right set of sweaty, humid, jungle-related circumstances.

He spent three days in the canopy, figured out how to piss laying down on a tree stand, and got to try out a new antivenom. Twice. Fucking mutant spiders.

He decided he hated the jungle infinitely more than the desert. This information got filed away unspoken, mostly because there was no one to tell.

****

_He would go for days sometimes without talking, even when he was back on base. Clint answered when he was asked a question. He offered an opinion in the very rare circumstances when he was asked for one._

_It wasn't that Clint was unfriendly, in fact just the opposite. But being at SHIELD was like nothing he had ever done or expected to be doing and he felt completely out of his depth, for the longest time. As much as he was a part of the organization, these were not his people._

_He was a professional like everyone else here. But he was a soldier and he was used to being part of a squad. Here he had no squad. He was one more weapon waiting to be deployed. He was a sniper not an agent and being the best sniper available didn't change the fact that he wasn't one of them. He didn't really need anyone to come right out tell him that he was an outsider._

_His training was different, his formal education was negligible, and the life he lead away from SHIELD resembled nothing he heard talked about in front of the coffee dispensers or meeting rooms waiting for a briefing to start. "What did you do this weekend?" was a question that made him cringe. "Sat in my quarters and read until the range was open" didn't hold a candle to " Dinner with the in-laws" or "Hot date with that cute girl in legal". He had nothing to add to discussions he heard about families and hobbies and 'normal' lives. It was as obvious as the nose on his face and after awhile no one asked because the answer was always some permutation of "nothing."_

_He didn't hold on to any residual resentment created by the fact that his status as an outsider didn't stop anyone from using him. He couldn't resent that. It was his job after all._

****

The forest was denser than Clint expected, the fir trees as hard to navigate as any hardwood forest, and harder to traverse quietly through the bone dry undergrowth. His ability to be completely quiet was unparalleled, all it took was patience. A lot of patience.

He worked his way carefully toward the target. His progress was slowed by trying to avoid getting caught sneaking up with a sniper rifle, which would lead to the mission not being completed and him being dead. He was pretty sure neither of those outcomes would be acceptable to his superiors, especially the incomplete mission. So he moved slowly and watched where he was putting his feet while making his way to the ridgeline overlooking the camp.

It was dark by the time he reached his objective. The arches of his feet ached from stepping so carefully, for so long. 

He'd laid out his plan and the timeline involved when he was given his mission parameters and Clint found what he needed soon after reaching the ridge line. Trees, tall and straight with a good distribution of thick branches all the way to the dense crowns. Easy to climb and plenty of cover once he reached the top.

He dropped his pack and quickly removed the climbing harness and specialized gear he'd brought for just this purpose. He was free climbing up but he would need the harness coming down, and he was damned sure he wouldn't have time to scramble into a harness to repel down. Better safe than dead or captured.

Clint strapped on his climbing spurs and started to go up the trunk of the tree he'd chosen. Climbing to a high vantage point in one of the huge conifers was always part of the plan. It was both safer and more difficult to do in the dark. It was his best bet to remain undiscovered even if it more than doubled the risk.

As he climbed Clint remembered, for just as second, what it felt like to be a kid scrambling up into the peak of the big top to watch the show where no one would come along and give a job to do. He remembered how safe he felt up there, and the look of gleeful admiration on Madame Blavatsky's face when she realized that was were he was running off to. Clint kept climbing and let the memory fall behind him.

 

He climbed quickly, trimming anything that looked like it would be in the way on the route back down, carefully tucking the trimmed pieces back into the tree so there was no litter on the ground. He moved efficiently, reveling in the effort it took, every muscle involved. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat by the time he reached his spot. 

Near the crown Clint slung a leg over a well positioned, sturdy branch and secured a rappelling line to it. Working quietly as always, relaxed and somehow more free than he ever was with his feet on the ground, perfectly in his element.

He left the line coiled, waiting to deploy, until the moment he needed to leave. It would eliminate the chance of the line being seen by anyone on the ground. Clint secured a strong but light webbing to form a sling between two branches and climbed onto it to wait however long it took.

When all was secure in his perch Clint dug out water and a power bar and settled in. The quiet of the trees uninterrupted, once again, by his presence.

Daylight came but the shot didn't, not the first day. He sat in his tree, moving hardly at all, watching the camp. There was no sign of his target, the first day..

Hawkeye waited. Power bars and bottled water and waiting in a tree with his eye to a spotting scope was a cakewalk for him. No one was shooting at him and it wasn't raining. Pissing a hundred feet off the ground had it's challenges but whatever, it was the job. He watched, noted wind directions, went through his own version of isometrics to keep from getting stiff, and even gathered some intel.

 

On the third day, late, when there was barely enough light for his scope to gather, his target stepped out of a cabin, alone, for a smoke. In the last moments of daylight Clint Barton put a perfect, small hole between his eyes. The mark hit the ground without making a sound.

Clint watched through his scope until the target's legs quit twitching. He wasn't sticking around long enough to do a full confirmation count. 30 seconds was all SHIELD was getting. He had killed too many people not to be sure of his shot.

Clint broke the rifle down, fingers running on autopilot, thinking about nothing but the steps he needed to get to the pick-up. The pieces of the rifle fit perfectly into the bottom pocket of his pack. He clipped a carabiner on his harness at the same time he was throwing the pack onto his back. It was still settling into place as Clint started falling silently down the drop-line. When his feet hit the ground he threw the rope as high into the branches as he could, buying himself more lead time by leaving no trace.

He did not look back or hesitate. It was 36 miles to the his first evac point and he had time only to run. He had just over 6 hours. If he missed the first evac it was another 30 miles to the next, and last, pick up, and his chances went from slim to fucked. It was a long damned way to the nearest safe house.

 

Seven miles an hour running speed with two breaks and no sign of hostiles, Clint kept his mind on what he was doing, running fast and staying quiet. After the number of times he'd done this run or one just like it, it should be a piece of cake, but Clint was still alive because he stayed focused.

Just after dawn he stepped from behind the tree line just as a chopper set down. 30 minutes later Clint watched the trees rise up to meet them as they touched down across the border.

A SHIELD agent he recognized was there to meet him.

“Mission status, Hawkeye?”

“Complete.”

He went to find somewhere to sleep.

****

_Sometimes he dreamed. Not nightmares, dreams. Stupid stuff. Ordinary everyday, normal stuff. Mostly things he'd never done._

_Like walking a dog. It was such a simple thing but he had never done it. And he'd wanted a dog so bad when he was small, when he still had a home, but Clint was never brave enough to ask because he knew his Daddy would say no and his Momma would look sad. So he never._

_But he dreamed about it. Walking with a scruffy dog that would look at him with adoring eyes. Sometimes they walked in a field full of ripe wheat like he remembered from Iowa. Sometimes they walked in Central Park even though Clint hardly ever went there in real life._

_Other times he dreamed about sitting on a beach somewhere warm with no deadlines or places he had to leave for. He would feel the sand between his bare toes and see the tide creeping up and in this dream he stayed there all day, watching the sun go down._

_He always woke up from dreams like that feeling weird, like he was missing something vital to his survival. He rarely remembered them past finishing his first cup of coffee.  
_

****

He got shot to shit on an Op that went FUBAR from the very start.

The planning was loose, the intel was thin and the Agent in Charge was a self-important dickhead who wasn't looking for opinions from 'a glorified mercenary'.

Barton only had a couple of choices: do what he was told or face penalty. SHIELD was even less of a democracy than the armed services, which was not at all. At least in the military the worst they could do to you was chuck your ass in the stockade. Clint wasn't sure SHIELD even had a stockade, at least not for guys like him. He had no illusions left by then about how easy he was to replace.

So he went where they sent him, and did his best to get back alive with as many live SHIELD agents as he could salvage from the worst clusterfuck he'd ever been involved in. The shooting started almost immediately. 

 

It wasn't the first time he had ever carried someone out of a hot zone but it was turning out to be one of the worst. Every step pushed more blood past the edges of the field dressing wrapped around his thigh. It hurt like a bitch, felt like it was tearing into him with every step, but it wasn't bleeding _much_. There was no point in stopping to tighten it a little if it meant they both got caught. Clint shifted Jr Agent Hendrix up higher on his shoulders, trying to relieve the pressure on the bullet wound in Clint's left shoulder. By the time they covered the six miles to dust -off Clint was shaking and his muscles were on fire. He waited until someone lifted Hendrix off his shoulders before dropping to his knees and emptying his stomach.

He was drifting on a haze of morphine and blood loss when he heard a med tech say that Hendrix had probably been dead two miles from safety. Barton thought of the picture Hendrix carried in his wallet, a pretty blond woman, and the ring on his finger so new he didn’t even have a tan line from it. At least this way she had something besides an empty casket to bury.

Two surgeries, thirty stitches, and two psych evals a week while he heeled, were followed by six fucking weeks of 'medically necessary leave'. The only real upside to the whole fucking thing was that he got to stay on base for most of it. Too bad he had to get blown all to hell to get some down time. 

By the time they let him get back to work Clint was starting to suspect the shrinks were right, he was almost off his rocker. From boredom. He was sitting in the cafeteria drinking coffee and eating donuts holes when Sitwell dropped a file folder on his table and sat down. Jasper was one of the few people who treated Clint just like everyone else. It was why Clint didn't stab him with a fork when Sitwell snagged a donut without asking. Small price to pay for semi-friendly company.

“There's this thing in Alberta. You're being assigned to the team there until it's resolved. You will be under the supervision of one of the best senior agents in SHEILD. You leave at 0600.”

Sitwell actually looked a little sorry to be delivering the news but Clint made no effort to hide the grin on his face. Alberta was colder than a witches tits this time of year but he didn't give a shit. For the past six weeks his life had been the inside of SHIELD doing physio and then reconditioning. He'd take the frozen ass-end of the world, any day, over the brain numbing boredom of waiting for the all-clear from medical.

****

_It was Sitwell who found him in the beginning. Clint knew people had some weird idea that he had been recruited out of the army, transferred out because of his extraordinary skills. The truth was a lot less classy._

_He'd been in the city since he’d got off a bus from Bragg. Other-Than-Honorable Discharge, they called it. Might as well have said “fuck off you are too broken to be any more use.”_

_With no benefits, no job and nowhere else to go. He had to make his own way. Again._

_He tried doing the right thing, it was what lead him to the military in the first place. But he couldn't maintain it. Especially after he was discharged. He was hungry and cold and desperate. So he did the only thing he knew how to do. He picked up a weapon. He stood outside a liquor store watching the old man behind the counter serve his customers with a smile until Clint felt like puking. He was low but not so low that he could go inside and stick a gun in that old mans face demanding money._

_He put the gun in his coat pocket and walked away._

_He walked for hours moving through the city until darkness descended. And then he walked some more. It was too cold to be outside but he had nowhere else to go. What did it matter, one more night out on the street? He kept walking, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoody, head down to keep the wind out. Head down to keep the world out. He felt the cold and the desperation seep deeper into his bones. The best he could do right now was keep his head down and keep moving._

_Which is why he walked right into the guy in a suit. Clint stumbled back a bit and mumbled an apology, the guy ignored him just kept walking as he brushed at his overcoat. His really nice overcoat. His really nice expensive looking over coat._

_Instead of carrying on the way he had been, Clint fell into step behind the guy in the suit._

_That was how he met Jasper Sitwell. Well, really that was the first time he saw Jasper Sitwell. Clint actually officially 'met' him when he regained consciousness. Sitwell had kicked his ass when Clint tried to pick his pocket, knocked him out cold. Then sat down on a crate in the alley where it happened and waited for Clint to come around._  
"Welcome back soldier. Have you ever heard of SHIELD?"  


****

They sent him in, on a short leash, still in contact with his handler. The comms they used were effective over a couple of miles, so his handler could be in contact without being exposed.

Clint set up on top of an abandoned building with a good line of sight, but no cover from the weather. It became an issue almost immediately. It was fucking cold and there was wind, not enough to skew his aim, but enough to cut right through his gear and drive ice into his blood.

Clint pointed the fact out to his handler.

“We don't pay you to bitch,” was all he got back.

Clint hunkered down and shut his mouth. If his handler didn't give a shit the first time Clint told him, the guy was bound to care even less if Clint brought it up again.

 

Clint Barton was fucking awesome at what he did, and part of that was waiting. And not complaining. The sooner the job was done the sooner he could get out of the wind.

It took 16 hours. He had no idea why, but by the time he got word his fingers were almost too numb to pull the trigger. Almost. But muscle memory was an amazing thing. His shot was dead center. The recoil snapped through his frozen arms like a lightening strike, drilling pain all the way down his spine. The mark collapsed into a wet, boneless heap.

“Objective cleared. Back to base, Barton”. He didn't recognize the voice but that was nothing new. The price of having a skill that everyone wanted was that he was constantly floating from one team to another. There were too many faces at SHIELD to memorize, he remembered the important ones. There just weren't that many he thought fit that description.

Clint let his arms fall away from the rifle stock and dropped his forehead against the cheek piece, relief made his eyes fall closed. He was tired, more tired than he had been in a long time. He needed a minute to get moving. His back and shoulders felt heavy. When Clint tried to move his legs he felt the muscles in his thighs tighten and seize. Shit. He was a lot colder than he'd realized. He thought about closing his eyes and letting the cold disguised as sleep take him. He was _really_ tired. But in the end Clint didn't have it in him to give up. He groaned when he tried to get to his feet. 

His comm was still open and no one on the other end needed to hear that shit. He pulled his ear bud and went silent before trying to stand again. He'd listen to the bitching about him going off line later. No one needed to know that his joints were locked solid and that it took him almost five minutes to get moving.

The sun dropped below the horizon fast. The last of the light stole what little warmth there was. By the time he reached the van where logistics was waiting, Clint's thighs were numb from the cold and the wind. His hands were locked around the strap of his rifle so tight he couldn't uncurl them. 

His handler was there and the new guy, Clint couldn't remember their names right now. Not that it really mattered. He just needed to verify the kill and get cleared. He also needed to find somewhere to thaw out, but that couldn't happen until he was released. He climbed into the van and sat waiting. It was warm there, even if he was surrounded by a bunch of suits.

He moved his fingers a little but they were still stiff and mostly locked. The heat was soaking in sending ground glass pain through his too cold fingers. At least it meant he was thawing out. He hissed at the pain when he flexed his fingers a little. The new guy -Coulter maybe?- looked over scowling at him. 

“God dammit Barton! Why didn't you tell someone you were cold?”

Clint looked over the suit's shoulder at his on site handler -Henderson, Clint remembered now that he was warmer, and shrugged. There was no point in getting into it.

“Can I go?” Clint asked ignoring the question.

Henderson just looked back and said “It's confirmed. You're free to go Barton.”

Clint nodded and stood to leave, thinking only of finding a hot shower and a place to sleep.

“Sit down.” the new guy barked. He outranked everyone in the van. Clint did what he was told without question, even though all he wanted was to be gone.

A minute later there was a hot cup of coffee being thrust at him. It was all Clint could do to uncurl his fingers to reach for it. The suit handed him the cup, waiting to be sure Clint had a grip before letting go. The heat from it bled into his hands making the bones ache and throb. The coffee was good though, sweet and creamy and strong and a little burnt, but just what he needed. He nodded his thanks and took another sip. Clint felt the coffee slip down his throat and spread warmth all the way through him. The sugar hit his system and the flush of energy was enough to keep his eyes open, for now.

Clint could feel the new guy watching him.Clint couldn't be bothered to figure out what was up. Guys like that, with their crisp suits and manicured nails and shiny black shoes, he always rubbed them the wrong way. Sometimes without even speaking. When the cup Clint was holding was almost empty the senior agent popped open the door on the van.

“Barton, you ride with me.”

Well shit. The only reason one of these guys ever focused on him even at all was to give him a hard time about something.

Clint hesitated for only a second then followed. Whatever he'd screwed up this time he might as well get the ass chewing out of the way as soon as possible, so he could get warmed the fuck up and maybe even sleep. 

He tried to think what he'd done, it had to be pretty big to draw the attention of the senior agent, probably 'bitching' over the comm. He'd heard it a hundred times, “Cut the chatter,” seemed to be code for “No one here gives a shitnwhat you have to say,so don't talk.” 

His one complaint about the cold was the only thing that had been off book this time around. So fine, he'd get a 5 minute speech about doing his job and shutting his mouth and the suit would drop him at or near a cheap hotel so he could get a room.

Clint climbed into the guys Accura and waited for the speech. The new guy sat for a moment before asking “Is it always like that?”

“Sir?”

“They park you somewhere and you stay there no matter what?”

“That's my job.”

“Actually. I thought you're job was to eliminate a target with minimal interface or damage to assets.”

Clint felt his anger flare. “I did that! I _always_ do that!” Clint didn't try to keep the anger out of his voice. Who the fuck was this guy to say Clint wasn't doing his fucking job! Sixteen fucking hours crouched-

“Not what I meant.” the guy said, voice so calm it kind of derailed the rant Clint was working up to. “What I meant, Barton, was do you always stay where they put you no matter how miserable it is?”

Clint looked at him blankly. The guy had obviously never read his file. “Not always. If there is a better shot somewhere else, I go there.” The whole conversation was knocking him off kilter. What was this guys point?

“Even if you get frostbite? Or hypothermia?”

“I don't have frostbite. And it's my job.” Barton told him already sick of the conversation. What the fuck. The guy was seriously gonna chew him out for getting _cold_? Clint felt a familiar weariness creep over him. It didn't seem to matter what he did there was always someone willing to point out how he could have done it better.

“Hm.” was all the agent said before he started the car and pulled out onto the road. Clint waited almost five minutes for something more to be said before he realized that the conversation was finished.

They stopped at a fairly decent motel and Clint wondered how far he was going to have to walk to find a cheap place. No way would his expense sheet cover somewhere like this. Clint hoped it wasn't too far, he was getting really tired. He suppressed a shudder at the thought of having to go back out into the cold and walk. He thought about asking the guy if he knew a place but discarded the idea. If this guy was inclined to be that helpful they would be there already and not parked at the _suits_ motel.

The agent extended his hand which was holding a key card.

“Room 210. Get some sleep Barton we'll talk more in the morning.”

“Sir?”

“Your room. 210.” he waved the card at Clint and arched an eyebrow.

Clint knew he was staring like a slack jawed idiot, but he honestly couldn't help it. Clint wasn't staring because he was cold or hungry or approaching exhausted (even though all of those were true). No, the thing that had knocked him right off his axis was _a suit_ apparently giving him a decent place to sleep tonight.

“I – uh- don't usually- uh bunk at places like this.” Barton said not looking directly at Coulson.

“Oh? Where _do_ you usually bunk, Barton?” there was an edge to his voice that made Clint wary.

“Somewhere..... simpler?” Clint winced. He sounded like an idiot.

“Ah. Well not tonight Barton. I need you rested and recuperated tomorrow. SHIELD can spring. Take it.” he said thrusting the card at Barton, making it sound like and order. “Get some sleep. I'll be back around 0700.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Clint got out of the car, grabbed his kit and walked up to the door.

 

He couldn't quite shake the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop even while he was standing under the spray of a shower so hot it turned his skin red. He didn't manage to stay in the shower long enough to run out of hot water. Exhaustion sapping the last of his energy as soon as he was warmed through.

He crawled into crisp white sheets and passed out trying to figure out what the catch was.

[ ](http://imgur.com/scI9hmV)

_He never remembered being hit. It was just one of those things that came with being alive. You got hit, you took the blow, and shook it off. There were worse things than a fist. He learned that when he was small. Words where the things that hurt the worst. Cruel words and kind they all hurt. You knew the cruelest words were true and the kindest words not to be trusted or believed._

_“You useless little shit! You're never gonna be worth nothin'!”_

_“It'll be okay Clint. Imma take care of you. Keep you safe.”_

_“I'm sorry son, you're parents are gone. You need to come with us. We'll find a nice family to take care of you”_

_“You little bastard! I hate you! You're not my brother anymore!”_

_“It's okay Hawkeye. I'll watch out for you now. You don't need Barney.”_

_A litany of truths and lies that cut to the bone.  
_

  
[ ](http://imgur.com/RnLhEta)

He broke his right wrist on a mission and almost lost his mind when he got home. Well okay, a guy with a crowbar broke his wrist for him. The 6 weeks before he could draw the string on a re-curve was what almost drove him insane.

He was “asked” to stay at shield headquarters for the duration. Apparently not being able to do anything useful (that he was actually good at) made him some sort of weird 'unfulfilled risk potential' and Fury thought he needed supervision and that came in the form of Agent Coulson, the guy from the Op in Alberta. Apparently Coulson had displeased the director in some fundamental way because he was now Hawkeye's babysitter. Coulson was philosophical about it, Clint was deeply annoyed.

When Clint was released from medical he spent the first night in his shield assigned room in months. It was still, and small, and gray, and as unfriendly as it was the first time he slept there, but Clint had nowhere else to sleep.

“I could take you to your place to pick up a few things if you need,” Coulson said from the open doorway, when he stopped by to check in with Clint.

Clint looked around seeing all the spaces he had never managed to fill.. He guessed it might seem a little...empty.

“This _is_ my place.” Clint told him and pointed to the rack on the wall over his bed where his favorite recurve and a hand tooled leather quiver rested, like the prized possession it was.

Coulson didn't say anything. The single raised eyebrow and the head tilt did it all for him.

“I have everything I need here.” Clint said, expending great effort not to sound defensive. Clint knew he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but not about this.

He liked his life simple.

Coulson looked at Clint like he was trying to figure something out and then just nodded at him and left Clint to get re-settled.

Clint emptied his duffel bag, took a shower and changed. He was tired and his whole arm ached. It was the only first evening and he was already bored. The next few weeks were going to be a nightmare if he didn't find something to do.

He settled for going to the cafeteria, painkillers and an empty stomach were not Clint's idea of a fun way to break up the monotony. He walked past the lounge and looked longingly at the sofa and the TV, both currently fully engaged by junior agents he had never actually spoken to.

He wished he had a couple of books or something to keep him occupied. The thought of watching TV in the lounge was even more unappealing than spending hours in his room with nothing but a bed and his bow, and he was too fucking exhausted to go looking for the kind of trouble that would keep him entertained.

Clint grabbed a sandwich, a water, a coke and an apple, and smiled at the only person in the mostly full room he actually knew to speak to. Angela was grey haired beauty who worked the register swiping pass cards and keeping track of … stuff. She always had a smile for Clint and a free piece of pie if there was any left. This time around there was apparently no pie but he still got a smile that reminded him of his mother's.

The cafeteria was also almost full. Too full. Clint examined his options for a moment. The empty gray room with a bed and his bow was still better than stilted conversation with people who either thought he was nuts or not that bright.

He went back the way he came.

He stopped short when he got to the door of his room. There was a small flat panel TV sitting in front of his door.

The note taped to the top of it said  
The cable is turned on. Don't stay up all night watching OWN....P. Coulson

Clint didn't bother trying to hide the confused smile on his face. It was not like there was anyone around to see any way. He pointedly didn't wonder what the P. stood for.

He didn't stay up all night watching the Oprah channel either. It was Animal Planet.

[ ](http://imgur.com/aP3l93k)

 

Clint was eating oatmeal and toast, and drinking coffee in the cafeteria the next morning when Agent Coulson sat down across from him.

Coulson looked perfectly pressed and polished, in a different suit that was just similar enough to be not too noticeable. Clint noticed. That's what he did. Notice things. Hawkeye, right? Coulson was holding a cup of coffee like it was the answer to everything.

'42' Clint thought and smiled into his oatmeal.

They didn't exchange greetings or small talk but Coulson stood up when Clint was done eating and inclined his head toward the door, one eyebrow lifted. Clint weighed his extremely boring options for a second or two, then followed him out.

Coulson lead him to an office Clint didn't even know existed, tucked into an alcove on the same floor as the directors office. There was no receptionist and no name on the door.

There was a leather couch long and wide enough to sprawl on, a private en-suite and a window. The desk was tidy but not empty. There was a laptop and neat stacks of paper and picture frames. Coulson just stepped back and let Clint prowl, looking at but not touching every detail that got his attention. A pretty blond woman and a small boy with Phil's chin stared back at him from the picture frames and Clint filed that under 'none of your business' without asking any questions.

When he was done exploring Clint flopped down on the sofa when he was done looking and said “Now what?” exasperated, but about as comfortable as he was going to get somewhere that was not a shooting range or a field op.

Coulson smiled, a little smugly as if he had just won something, and handed Clint a stack of half finished mission reports.

'Oh.' Clint thought when he recognized his own terrible printing. He huffed noisily and took the pen Agent Coulson also offered.

The reports took longer to complete than was strictly necessary. Clint made a point to write very neatly and thought carefully about what he was writing. He wasn’t pressed for time, and it he felt a certain weight knowing that Coulson wanted him to do this. It was weird giving a shit what some _suit_ thought of his stupid printing. Still, he could take a little more than his usual care, make Coulson's life a little easier.

Clint compared the pathetically small sack of paperwork he had finished to the _pile_ yet to be done. The next six weeks stretched endlessly in front of him and he tried not to let frustration bubble up in his chest. 

It wasn't like he didn't know how to occupy his mind while waiting. Sniper, right? Still. He tried to be glad to have something to do with his hands. Hand.

The best thing, the only good thing, to come out of that broken hand was Coulson. Well not Coulson exactly but Clint's connection to him. Hawkeye spent an unreasonable amount of time in Coulson's office and Coulson never once complained or asked him to leave. Instead he came up with things to occupy Clint without stressing his hand. The best and most unexpected thing Coulson did for him happened when he saw Clint poking at his bookshelf.

Clint had looked before, absently never touching and never daring to ask if he could read something. The titles were unfamiliar, which wasn't surprising considering Clint had not read more than five books in his life. He figured field manuals didn't count. And these books. They showed some wear, obviously having been read and re-read, but were all neatly shelved, spines neatly arranged and sorted by some system that eluded Clint. The titles all looked like they would be over his head.

"You could choose something, you know" Coulson said without looking up from his laptop.

"Sir?" 

"A book. You could pick something out to read. Break up the monotony of cheap cable TV." 

"I. Uh don't really" Clint waved his hand vaguely at the shelf, he didn't want to say out loud that he didn't read for fun, further cementing his status as an uneducated idiot. He figured Coulson would get his meaning.

"What do you normally read?"

Apparently not.

"Field manuals?"

"Ah." Coulson said standing and walking over "Never really had the time before, right?"

Clint gave a shrug. A shrug wasn't a lie and it also wasn't an admission that Clint didn't think he read well enough to get through anything on these shelves.

"Best start with the classics then. Maybe a couple, see what you like."

Clint went back to his room that night with a slim volume by Ernest Hemingway (even Clint had heard of that guy) and a really fat paperback called David Copperfield, something called 'Pronto' that Clint thought was promising because there was a picture of a revolver on the front, another thing that looked like a kids book written by a guy with three initials and a last name Clint had now idea how to pronounce. He almost kicked that one back, he didn't really want to read a kids book, but it was very well worn and when Clint opened it up to look the first blank page had " Property of Phillip J Coulson written in the front. This was a book Coulson (Phil?) loved and had read a lot. There had to be something going for it.

He read them all. Turned out he wasn't a Dickens fan, thought Hemingway was bitter and overrated, liked Leonard well enough, and developed a deep and abiding love for Tolkien.

The first Christmas present Clint received as an adult was a box set of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings… from Coulson. He read it at every chance, even after he was healed and back at work, whichever volume he was reading went into the bottom of his duffle. He read them until the books themselves fell apart.

****

_Clint got an apartment when he had been working under Coulson a year._

_They were done keeping a close eye on him and Clint was informed that he needed to find off base housing since he no longer needed supervision. He was no longer a free-lancer. He was a fully credentialed member of SHIELD._

_The first flush of accomplishment at having made the cut with one of the toughest letter agencies on the planet, was quickly tempered by the fact that he had no fucking clue how to find a place to live. He'd never done it before, had his own place._

_He had gone from his parents house to an orphanage; from an orphanage to a bunk in one caravan or another while traversing the country; when he'd finally quit carnivals and circuses for good he graduated to sleeping in back alleys for a few weeks, until he decided that even the army was better than eating out of dumpsters and dodging the cops. The military then provided for every basic need while they trained him and molded him to fit the ranks inhabited by the best trained killers in the world._

_So here he was, almost 30 years old, trying to navigate the ins and outs of damage deposits and first and last months rent and references, for-fucks-sake. It didn't take him long to figure out he could by-pass most of that confusing shit by lowering his standards. It wasn't as if he needed a lot anyway. He rented a grubby unfurnished room with a closet posing as a bedroom tacked on one side and a cramped bathroom with only a toilet and shower on the other side. It was slightly less cheap version of every hotel room he had ever stayed in while on ops. Minus the furniture he didn't have._

_He spent the first night sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. He could hear skittering in the walls and there was a smell that permeated everything. He didn't care. He had a chair under the door knob and an......45ACP under the duffel he used for a pillow. That was familiar at least._

_Whenever he came back from an op and he was cleared to leave base he went back to his apartment to scratch one more thing off of what turned out to be a lengthy to-do list._

_The first week it was scrub the ever-loving-shit out of every surface. The armed services had given him a great appreciation for cleanliness and order. Next, was find something to sleep on, something to sit on and something to listen to or watch when he had free time. He compromised on the first two with a folding cot from the Army surplus store six blocks over. It was also the only thing he could strap to the back of his Norton. Besides it had a feeling of impermanence to it that made his skin itch a lot less than the idea of actual furniture._

_It was the same thinking that motivated him to buy a cheap laptop instead of a TV and stereo, the next time he was back from an op. Everything, of any value, he owned could fit in the saddlebags of his bike. Clint knew there was some fucked up thinking in there somewhere but didn't examine it too closely._

_His days and hours at the apartment were spent in unpredictably spaced blocks of time that never added up to a week on end. He didn't mind. At first the quiet and emptiness, the solitude, freaked him out so much he had a harder time than normal sleeping. He figured he'd get over it eventually._

_The landlord never fixed anything and Clint needed something to do. So he started fixing things up. Those empty blocks of time were eventually filled with a coat of paint to cover grubby walls or building a cheap bookshelf to hold his growing pile of thrift-store paperbacks. Fixing a tap that wouldn't stop dripping and then the toilet that ran all night._

_He kept it simple, serviceable, and minimal. It was a place to sleep and pass spare time he didn't really want. It never really crossed mind to expect anything more. He preferred his room at SHIELD. The one that wasn't his anymore. He wondered who slept there now._

****

He caught pneumonia in the Carpathian Mountains. Well really, he fell through ice on a poorly frozen lake in the Carpathian Mountains, got his ass rescued by his new full time handler, shot the bad guy through the eye with a high velocity carbon arrow, and proceeded to cough up half a lung and shit load of lake water. By the time Coulson got them to dust-off Clint could barely breathe.

It sucked.

Sitwell thought he was funny, kept asking Clint if he was sure it was just a little water in his lungs and not the result of a vampire bite. It was kind of funny at first. But after a day or two Clint _really_ couldn't breathe and he was coughing all the time. Some of the humor went out of the situation the first time he had to sit down to avoid falling down.

When he started feeling lightheaded Clint didn't tell anyone, there was an op pending and he wasn't willing to take the chance on being replaced, even temporarily. So he kept moving, and reading the briefs, and keeping his head down so no one would get the idea that he might actually be _sick_ instead a little under the weather.

The shitty thing though, was that now he couldn't escape notice of whoever was his handler this week because they had stopped moving him around like a portable weapons system and given him to a guy who never missed a damned thing. So Clint avoided him. It turned out to be fairly easy, all he had to do was hide in his apartment.

Okay, so not easy at all. He couldn't stand skipping out on his range time for even a day and when he was too tired to get any projects done his apartment actually really fucking boring.

He decided the best course of action was to sleep. Which would have been okay except for the part where he couldn't really breathe properly when he was lying down and it made him cough even harder and suddenly he was coughing and couldn't stop and couldn't breathe and holy shit he was going to suffocate in his shitty under-furnished apartment and they probably wouldn't find his body for a week.

He tried really hard not to freak out, but he just couldn't get enough air. Clint rolled off the bed and onto his his hands and knees and fell face first onto the worn hardwood. He passed out with his face pressed against the cold floor struggling to breathe.

 

He woke up, of course, in medical with a mask over his face and a needle in his arm. He scratched off the mask and was just reaching to pull out the IV when a voice brought him up short “Barton! Leave that damned thing where it is!” A wide calloused hand grabbed his wrist and held fast. Coulson actually looked pretty pissed.

Clint drew a breath to explain about needing to get up and dressed, and how he was good to go it was just a cold. Except when the air hit the bottom of his lungs he felt the itch and burn, choking off his airway. He started coughing, which quickly cut off everything except the flash of panic at not finding any air.

Hands pushed him back into the upright bed and slipped that mask over his mouth and Clint felt the cold mist of oxygen hit his nose and the back of his throat. It was a relief to find that small bit of air but it still took long minutes for everything to calm enough that he stopped seeing black flecks dancing across his vision. Coulson stayed there, holding Clint's wrist and waiting.

When Clint's breathing finally steadied and the panic had ebbed away Coulson spoke. “I have no damned idea what is going on in your head Specialist Barton but you need to knock this shit off. There is _nothing_ going on anywhere right now that needs your attention more that that IV bag and this bed.”

Clint opened his mouth to protest.

“Ah!” Coulson barked aiming an imperious and highly annoying finger right at his face. “Not a word. Nothing! Jesus Barton, you can't even breathe. You are sitting this one out.”

Clint could feel the pinched expression on his own face and Coulson could clearly see it. He looked puzzled for a moment and then apparently the penny dropped.

“Barton. Your job is still going to be waiting for you when you get out of here. Unless you die of pneumonia.” Coulson smirked at him “Then you're fucked.”

Clint couldn't help the surprised bark that set him coughing a little.

When he stopped coughing Coulson stepped back and said “Get some rest Hawkeye.”

Clint stared after him wondering how true it was, about his job waiting for him. He had plenty of evidence dished out to him by various agents in his time with SHIELD that he was as replaceable as any other weapon. But Agent Coulson. Clint had never caught the guy being anything but brutally honest with him. He fell asleep hoping it was true but unsurprisingly Clint Barton was a little short on faith.

****

_For a kid who rarely had enough to eat or a decent place to sleep Clint didn't get sick much. Or even really at all. Hurt yes, hurt often even, but hardly ever just plain sick. He never really got the hang of being sick. And hospitals where a whole other thing. Clint broke bones and bled and generally took one beating after another his whole childhood, but he never landed in an actual hospital bed until he was 17 years old and almost dead. He never really got the hang of hospitals either. No matter how often he ended up in one for SHIELD._

_He learned to grit his teeth and sit still long enough to get ambulatory again. He never learned to like it or do more than tolerate._

_It turned out the best thing about having an apartment was that if he could get there after escaping the hospital he was generally left alone to get better in peace._

_Except for that one timed he almost choked to death on the fluid in his lungs on his bedroom floor.  
He worked very hard to avoid talking or thinking about the whole incident. Coulson tended to get very cranky if it came up. Clint wasn't really sure why. It wasn't like he died._

****

Clint eventually made a place for himself at SHIELD. Finding Natasha, the beautiful dangerous Natasha he had known when he was still almost a boy, had gone a long way to making that place for him. Bringing her in, rather putting a bullet between her eyes, had nearly cost him everything. But in the end it had been worth it, for him personally and for SHIELD as an organization. Everyone was better off having her on their side. Clint was glad to have someone he had known that long. He made no secret of being overjoyed that she wasn't dead. He also didn't begrudge the fact that she fit in better at SHIELD than he did. The Soviets had taught her to be a team player, after all.

So, his existence was tolerated and he even had friends. Nat of course, and Sitwell who'd brought him in and was therefore stuck with him. Woo was always good for someone to have lunch with at headquarters, although he was really more of the acquaintance-slash-work friend kind if thing. And Coulson. Clint wasn't really sure where to file him for the most part.

Coulson took care of his people, did the best by them possible and he had, since taking Clint on, made it very clear that Clint was one of his people. He cared if Clint was whole and healthy, more than his functionality as a sniper would strictly dictate. But they _were_ work friends.

Even if Coulson had been to Clint’s apartment and knew things about him only Nat was privy to, Clint knew virtually nothing about Coulson. He was in his mid forties, might have been, or was still, married, and worked too much. Coulson had that air of innate confidence about him that only came from an unshakable place in the world and in Clint's experience that only came from growing up with money. Everyone knew about Coulson's Captain America...thing so that didn't count as any sort of special friends only knowledge. In fact nothing Clint knew about him for sure _did_.

Except he did know _some_ things. Things he had learned that no one but Fury and Hill knew. 

Clint was looking at the picture of the woman and the boy again when Coulson said "My sister. And my nephew Mikey. They live in Amherst. She teaches Comparative Lit. And he's in grade four and is plotting the acquisition of a dog. .... I don't see them enough" His tone held such regret Clint thought for a minute Coulson hadn't meant to say it out loud. He was trying to parse that out when Coulson said "You always stop and look at them when you're here. I figured you were having a rare moment of good manners and didn't want to ask."

Clint saw the spark in Coulson's eye at the last bit, the hint of humor there.

"Huh. I figured wife. Didn't want to ask, not really my business."

"Barton." Coulson said, a familiar slight exasperation in his tone. "It okay to ask your friends personal questions." 

That kind of jolted Clint a bit. Friends. It was so matter of fact, casual. As if it was a given that they were friends. Clint had a moment of feeling like an idiot for not knowing. 

"Just. Not too personal." Coulson said giving him the eyebrow, the one that said 'I am being serious as shit here Barton'. "And no. No wife. Not anymore."

"Not anymore?" Coulson said questions were okay, that seemed like a reasonable question.

"She said I had to choose her or the job. I don't respond well to ultimatums and I didn't have enough of what she needed to walk away from SHIELD."

"Sorry to hear that, sir."

"It worked out in the end. She married a banker with a place in the Hamptons. They have three kids. I get a card from her at Christmas. She's happier."

Clint didn't mention the fact that Coulson hadn't said _he_ was happier. Clint could totally be tactful. He could do this 'friend' thing.

Clint other things too.

He knew where Coulson kept his rarest Captain America cards. "If anything happens to me make sure they don't throw them in a box with the rest of my office crap. Make sure my nephew gets them. They are worth enough to put the kid through an Ivy League school if he wants."

He knew where Coulson wanted to retire if he ever got the chance. " North Carolina. The Outer Banks is the most beautiful place I have ever seen when the weather is stormy. I bought house there twenty years ago."

He knew that Coulson now kept a bowl of apples on the coffee tale in his office because after a childhood filled with not enough of anything including real food Clint couldn't get enough of them. The bowl was always full, reds and greens and yellows, and Clint was the only one who ate them.

Clint knew that when he got into a beef with some asshole about _anything_ Coulson was always going to want to hear Clint's side of the story before anybody else. He always listened. And if Clint was letting the chip on his shoulder fuck up his life Coulson said so. "You're not that kid in the orphanage anymore, Clint. You're a grown man, and a good one. You don't have to let that boy's experiences make all your choices for you." 

The first time Clint balked at his placement on an Op run by Coulson set a pattern for every Op that came after. That first time Clint was sitting at the planning table same as always, he took one look at the plan that he was presented with at the briefing and gritted his teeth, getting ready for a fight. 

"Problem Agent Barton?" 

"Yes, sir." Clint did not fail to notice the eye rolling from a couple of other people sitting around the table. It hadn't ever stopped before. Didn't do him much good either. Didn't matter though, Clint wasn't real good at keeping his mouth shut. 

"What, exactly, is the problem?" Coulson had asked, not a hint of condescension or argument in his tone.

" I can't see the target and cover our people from there." he thought about every Op he had ever been on that went for a shit because someone on their team had been left without cover. It hadn't happened often but it _had_ happened and Clint had learned he had to dig his heels in to keep it from happening again. He was no less prepared to fight it out this time.

"What would you suggest?" Coulson asked, perfectly, completely serious and just like that there was no 'fight'. Coulson listened to him and paid attention, modified Clint's position and moved on. Every Op Clint was on, handled by Coulson, went that way. The fact that they had the highest success rates with the lowest casualty rates proved Clint knew his shit. Coulson was the first but he wasn't the only one who noticed. He didn't notice at first that it was happening, but Clint's place at SHIELD changed from pain in the ass to a guy whose input was valued. Clint Barton was under no illusions about who was responsible.

****

Clint couldn't figure out what he had done that precipitated getting pulled out of the field. Whatever the fuck it was he would really like to fix it, or apologize or beg for mercy because he was losing his fucking mind. The most challenging thing he had done in the last four weeks was assist on orientation for the latest crop of fresh meat. Seriously, he was going to lose his shit. _They had him on newbie detail_. And the only way anyone got stuck there was due to injury or due to fucking up, really badly. Neither one applied to Clint as far as he knew. And yet. Here he was following Woo around making nice at the baby agents. Which by the way he was not very good at, which Hill and Fury both had to know. Which made him wonder even more; what the fuck was going on.

No one would tell him. Hill just glared and told him to go do something useful, or not she didn't care “I am too damn busy right now to hold your hand so fuck off or I while find something _really_ boring to keep you busy.” Clint didn't need to be told twice, he fucked right off.

Sitwell apparently didn't know shit either “But if you find out anything good I'll buy you lunch if you share.” Clint just waved a vague hand over his shoulder while he was walking away and went to find Nat.

“Really Clint? You need to learn patience. Why don't you go find something to shoot at like a good boy.”

Coulson's office was locked (like that was any kind of hindrance) but it was also dark and empty. Coulson's laptop was gone along with his Glock. So, not gonna be back for a while.

That left Fury. Even when he was delirious with malaria, had an infected bullet wound in his shoulder and was sporting a 105 degree fever all at the same time he had not been out of his fucking mind enough to question Fury. About anything.

Clint decided to take Natasha's advice and went to find something to shoot. Someone would get around to telling him what was going on eventually.

 

“You've been tagged for a place on a new team Fury is putting together” Coulson told him a couple of days later.

Clint hunched his shoulders despite how sore they were from all the range time he had out in over the last couple of days waiting for the penny to drop.

“Not really a team player, sir.”

“Well good, because neither is anyone else on the 'team'. You'll fit right in.” Coulson slid a stack of folders across the desk to him. “Welcome to the Avengers Initiative.”

“Don't I get the opportunity to refuse, sir?”

“You can try. But of you do I'm sicking Natasha on you. There is no way she is going to tolerate being in that dog and pony show alone.”

At least he was done waiting to find out what the hell was going on. He was definitely being punished.

****

The Battle of New York was a different experience for everyone involved. For Clint It was a chance, finally to respond with a vengeance to something horrible that had been done to him. He had only two regrets: he didn't get to shoot Loki in the fucking face. And Phil Coulson died. Fortunately Phil Coulson's oldest living friend was a stone cold badass with some of the greatest scientific minds on the planet at his disposal. As a result Phil didn't _stay_ dead. Which mitigated a lot of what Clint was feeling about the aftermath. Also Phil got to be alive.

The shit part of that equation was the fact that Phil kind of got kicked upstairs as a result, so he wasn't Clint's handler or the Avengers liaison to SHIELD. That sucked. It was, as far as Clint could see, the end of the most stable relationship he'd had over the last few years. Maybe they _were_ only work friends, but now? They were former co-workers and the idea left a hollow feeling in Clint's chest.

Tough shit for him.

At least he had a steady gig with the Avengers, doing good in the world. He would get used to it. Besides he still had Natasha, which put him up in the friend department over where he had been when SHIELD first brought him in. He was calling it a win and moving on.

He went back to his apartment and built a bookshelf. And put new carpet in the bedroom. And painted the kitchen cabinets.

It was two months before the Avengers got called out for the second time. Clint's apartment was in a semi-permanent state of demolition/rebuild. He practically threw his hammer down when he got the call. Fuck he hated DIY almost as much as he hated not having anything to do.

“Hawkeye! Glad you could make it!” Captain Rogers said when Clint climbed aboard the Quinjet. He wondered briefly where Stark was.

“Let's go kick some air-breathing giant squid ass!” came over the comms and answered the question for him.

****

_Clint had left a lot of stuff behind in his life._

_The stuffed bear he forgot to put into the garbage bag the social worker lady handed him when they came to take him and Barney to the orphanage. Clint wondered sometimes, as an adult, how long his scruffy old bear sat on the floor in his and Barney's room. Didn't really matter in the long run. The comfort it had given him was long gone._

_The small stack of comic books under his mattress that he only remembered when they were halfway across the field behind the orphanage, literally running away. He had three of them, read almost to rags. Barney wouldn't let him go back and get them. “jesus Clint don't be stupid! We'll get caught if we go back now. I'll buy more once we got work. Let's go!” Barney never bought him more but when Clint got his first pay from the circus he bought some himself. Green Arrow and Captain America and Tales of Suspense. He read them until the pages were soft and worn._

_Everything but his bow when he left the circus. After that he tried not to have much. People or things. It worked until Coulson, and Natasha.  
_

[ ](http://imgur.com/fbYptyU)

Clint got hurt, again. Like he didn't see that coming. He was the only one banged up enough to land in Medical. This time though Clint was in hospital and instead of trying not to die of boredom until he was released he was thoroughly confused because everyone (the Avengers) kept coming into his room and talking to him, and bringing him magazines, and candy, and like _keeping him company_. It was weird… and confusing. He bitched to Tasha, about all the interruptions, she called him an idiot.

****

He was up in the cherry picker looking down on the action, ready to take the shot, waiting for the go. When it came, Clint grunted a reply and let the shot go without a word. No one was surprised when he hit his mark.

Later, at the debriefing everyone had their say, told their piece of the story. Steve's language was precise and to the point. Thor's report was thorough and... interesting. Stark was long winded but his observations were unique and accurate, and therefore worth while. Natasha was, in her own way, as precise as Rogers. Dr. Banner never had much to add at any debriefing since it was not usually him (exactly) that was fighting and no one was really looking to ask what Hulk thought. Everyone looked at Clint, waiting for his input.

“Do you have anything relevant to add Mr. Barton?” Fury asked clearly ready for the debriefing to be over.

It had been a long week with little sleep.

“Nope.”

The entirety of his new team looked at him in surprise as if he should have more to contribute. He did a quick re-assessment and spoke “I was engaged to lay cover. There was one shot, I took it.”

After, when they were filing out Captain Rogers spoke “Hawkeye. A word?”

“Sir?”

The Captain gave him a lopsided smile. “No need to be so formal Sgt.”

Clint nodded his acknowledgement and loosened his stance, waiting for the Captain to speak.

“Although I have absolutely NO dispute with the facts of your contribution during the debrief, I wanted to make it clear to you that I think it's appropriate that you give yourself more credit.”

“Sir?”

“You and I both know, Hawkeye, that you did considerably more than sit above the battle and wait for someone to shoot at.” Rogers gave him a look making it clear that he was prepared to argue if necessary.

“Sir. I am just a sniper.”

Rogers snorted “Sgt. I don't think 'just' is exactly the word you are looking for. I _have_ seen you shoot. Be that as it may. Your eyesight and your foresight saved lives today. There's nothing wrong with saying so out loud, with _you_ saying it out loud. Understood?”

“Yes sir.”

The captain nodded, hesitated a second and said “And stop calling me sir. My name is Steve and neither one of us is in the military anymore, son.”

Clint stood there, by the open door of the now empty room, looking after America's greatest hero. Huh. He just got a pep talk and a pat on the back from Captain America. Clint shook his head and stepped back inside, not sure why anyone thought it was necessary. Still, Coulson would be jealous as shit, so it wasn't a dead loss.

****

They didn't go for Shawarma after a fight these days. Clint went home. He assumed everyone else went... to their... homes. He wasn't really sure. He had his own shit going on, he figured the others did too.

He knew Tasha had an apartment that she kept to and for herself. He didn't begrudge her that. If he needed her she would come.

Besides he had a kitchen to finish. And his TV was kind of fucked up. It only got two shitty channels despite the satellite bill he paid every month. He thought he might have hooked something up wrong. What the fuck ever. He was a genius at shooting holes in shit, not hooking up electrical...things. It didn't even occur to him to ask anyone for help. Tasha would probably shoot his TV and Coulson was in some secret SHIELD facility breaking in a new team. He didn't really know anyone else. Well, he knew Jasper. But Sitwell was more hopeless than he was.

Clint was contemplating throwing the fucking receiver thing off the fire escape when someone knocked on his door. Which, weird. It was probably one of the other tenants needing a cup of sugar or something. None of them had knocked on his door yet, after living here for... huh. Four years. He went to answer it, he was sick of failing at turning on his fucking TV, and would happily use the distraction.

Clint got to his feet, grabbed his P30 off the table and walked over to see who was now _hammering_ on his door.

“Come on Barton. I know you're in there. Open up before the neighbors get annoyed!” Tony Stark called.

Mystery solved. Clint yanked open the door not bothering to hide his annoyance. “What?!”

“Oh good you _are_ here! I don't have to reprogram my AI.”

“You've got JARVIS keeping tabs on me?”

“Yup! Impressed?”

“Annoyed. What do you want?”

“Well I wanted to see for myself what you get up to when you are not out Avengering." Stark cocked an eyebrow at Clint's demolished kitchen. “Wouldn't have pegged you for Mr Fixit Barton.”

Clint lost the battle not to look defensive and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you want Stark?”

“Relax Barton. You can put away the gun show.” Stark said waving his hand vaguely at Clint's crossed arms. “Just checking on you, seeing for myself how you're doing. We don't see you at the tower much. Wanted to know if there was anything you needed. Good God, what happened here!” Tony came to a stop in front of the train wreck that was Clint's audio visual... disaster.

Clint sighed defeatedly. "I don't really know much about electronics."

"No shit!" Tony snarked, threw off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

Two hours, three beer and a large cheese pie later, Clint and Tony were watching 'Dog Cops'. 

Tony took a break from his episode long diatribe about how much he hated reality TV to say “You know Barton, you can _ask_ if you need help with … whatever. We're teammates, we help each other out.”

Clint wasn't sure he knew what that even meant.

 

Steve came by later in the week and didn't offer to fix anything. They sat on Clint's horrible (free-at-the-curb) sofa and made awkward small talk until Clint remembered he had TV and dived for the remote. Turned out Clint wasn't the only one who liked Dog Cops.

When he stood to leave Steve put one big hand on Clint's shoulder and gave it a gentle shake "I hope you don't feel excluded Clint. You're an important part of the team. We would all like to see more of you." 

Clint made a crack about not really looking for more bad guys to beat up, since that's the only time he really saw them much. Steve just gave him this _look_ , let his gaze wander around the deconstructed apartment and told Clint to give him a call when he was ready to paint. 

 

Natasha stopped in to sniff at his life choices and tell him it's okay to let people who saved his life on a regular basis at least a little closer than the guy who sold him bread.

 

Bruce brought him a plant.

 

Clint made a mental note to shoot holes in something (inanimate) that Stark loved, in revenge for him telling everyone where Clint lived, and then sicking them on him.

 

Coulson stopped in to remind Clint that he hadn't put all that effort into training him to act like a normal human, just so he could rot in his apartment. Coulson ordered him to accept at least one invitation a week from his new team to do something social and not work related.  
He also reminded Clint that just because Coulson got kicked upstairs doesn't mean they're not friends anymore.  
Then Coulson made Clint go to Starbucks with him.

“And for fucks sake Barton! My name is NOT Sir and I am not your reporting agent anymore. Call me Phil.”

The entire week left Clint slightly confused and deeply out of his depth. These people thought they were _friends_.

****

Clint broke his ankle leaping (falling) off of a building while shooting doombots. Okay it wasn't falling that broke his ankle, it was getting caught by by the hulk, who grabbed him by… his ankle. He REALLY broke it.

Six weeks, the doctors said. And he didn't even have Coulson to distract him because Coulson was off with his new team corralling superhero wannabes. And Natasha was off doing something sneaky for SHIELD. Clint kind of wanted to cry he was so bored, and maybe wallowing a bit. Except Steve came by his apartment the day after he got home and they spent an afternoon painting trim because Clint could do that sitting down.

Then Tony demanded his presence at the lab so they could go over arrow designs together, which turned into dinner, which turned into movies, and ended up being a fucking sleep over.

Then Cap came by again.

Then another Tony day.

Coulson made Clint buy lunch twice, when he was back in New York

Once it was even Bruce, which was when Clint clued in that they were actively plotting. To distract him. Clint tried not to over think it and let himself be distracted.

Miss Potts asked if he wouldn't mind helping out a group of under privileged kids with an archery program.

And next thing he knew his cast was off and he'd barely even noticed how long it had been.

Tasha came back and laughed her ass off at him. Clint tried not to scowl.

"You know for someone who claims 'best friend' you spend an awful lot of time laughing at me."

"That's because you're kind of an idiot."

 

He wasn't so dense that he didn't figure out that these people were his actual friends and whatever happened? It was going to be worth whatever the future held just to have THESE people around. They weren't so bad.

****

_He didn't think about Barney much anymore. Not on purpose anyway. He'd had a lot of time to train himself away from thinking he had a brother._

_Once in awhile though, usually when it was far too late (or maybe far too early) in the day, and sleep was nowhere to be found, it would kind of sneak up on him and Clint would find himself wondering with a kind of grudging secret wistfulness, a sort of longing, where Barney was now. On darker days Clint was sure Barney was dead, in a nameless grave somewhere the victim of his own anger._

_On better days Clint hoped Barney had stopped fighting the world and found a place in it for himself. Not like Clint had, because even after the depth of his betrayal Clint wished happiness and contentment for Barney. Not the (empty) life of a man who gave himself to a set of initials. No. Clint wished for Barney to have a family and a home and something like the life Clint never admitted he wanted for himself._

_Clint never spent a lot of time on either sets of thought. They both left him restless with a phantom pain in his chest he couldn't bear to acknowledge. The only way to put any of it at bay again was the balance he found with a bow in his hand. Or t the blank exhaustion of running for miles as hard as he could. And if that failed he knew a bunch of Super Heros that could be counted on to be distracting any day of the week._


End file.
